Santoryu no Naruto
by The Chthonic Professor
Summary: Naruto stumbles across the resting place of one Roronoa Zoro while skipping school one day, and begins to learn the art of the Santoryu: Three Sword Style from a scroll left by Zoro before he died. Taking on the man's dream (and reading about the adventures he faced with his captain and his crew), Naruto comes to realize the importance of Nakama... The rest of the summary is inside
1. Presence

_**Santoryu no Naruto**_

_**Professor King**_

_**Summary:**__ Naruto stumbles across the resting place of one Roronoa Zoro while skipping school one day, and begins to learn the art of the Santoryu: Three Sword Style from a scroll left by Zoro before he died. Taking on the man's dream (and reading about the adventures he faced with his captain and his crew), Naruto comes to realize the importance of Nakama far before the Wave mission, and everything changes._

_**Line Break:**__ Chapter Number (Ex: One, Two, Three, etc.)_

_One_

_**Chapter One – Presence**_

_One_

"Ooouuhwaa~" Uzumaki Naruto grinned at the sky with his fingers interlaced behind his head. Today was going to be a good day, he just knew it! He'd decided not to go to the academy today, and had taken a walk in the forest atop Hokage Mountain after pulling a prank to escape his pursuers.

It was such a beautiful day today that Naruto had gotten sidetracked, and begun cloud watching as he wandered between the great boughs of the forest. Not paying attention to his feet, it came as a surprise to the nine year old blonde when, upon putting his next foot forward, there was nothing beneath it to support him.

With a startled cry he fell, tumbling down a muddy slope and into a fast-flowing creek with a mighty 'Splash!'

If one were to have passed by the creek by some happenstance, they would have come across a mass of orange cloth, unconscious and floating face-up in the tumultuous waters of the creek.

_One_

When Naruto came-to, the sun had fallen below the horizon and the sky was bright with stars. Naruto had seen his fair share of the heavens before, laying atop the Yondaime's head in nights of melancholy, but never had he seen a sky as bright as this once night had fallen.

Away from the night time lights and activities of Konoha, the stars had the most brilliant glow to them, twinkling so far above his head, taunting him with their freedom.

The sky was so beautiful that Naruto nearly forgot that he had absolutely no clue where he was. Propping himself up on his elbow, his grimaced in disgust at the heavy weight of his clothing. Checking himself over in the light of the stars, Naruto's grimaced disgusted grimace turned to a scowl of frustration.

His favourite orange jacket had been entirely soaked through and torn excessively. With a sigh, he shrugged it off and left it on the rocky plateau upon which he stood. No more than thirty feet in front of him was a cliff face, the walls spreading out behind him on either side. It seemed like the creek flowed into a deep ravine somewhere along the way, and he'd ended up at the bottom.

Wearing nothing but his orange trousers (which were nearly two sizes too large) and a tight-fitting black tank that clung to him uncomfortably, Naruto began to shiver slightly in the frigid night air.

Rubbing his arms to try and warm them up, Naruto looked around as his vision slowly got accustomed to the darkness of the chasm. As his eyes wandered from left to right, Naruto passed over the cliff face before him once more and did a double-take.

There was something there.

Inching closer, Naruto walked up to the cliff face with slow, unsure steps, until he was no more than a couple of feet away from it. With squinted eyes, Naruto came to the startling realization that he was staring at a tomb.

Carved out of the wall was a massive block of marble, almost as high as Naruto was tall.

'_Here lies Roronoa Zoro, _

_Nakama,_

_Friend,_

_First Mate,_

_Greatest swordsman who ever lived.'_

The inscription was simple, but its words sent shivers running up and down his spine. With cautious steps, Naruto approached the marble tomb, brushing his hands against the immaculately carved inscription.

Just as Naruto's fingers passed over the man's name, _Roronoa Zoro_, there was a flash of light that temporarily blinded him. The words began to shine with a blue, otherworldly light and an unnatural breeze began to whip itself up in the bottom of the ravine.

Water began to crash forcefully against the rock walls, creating a misty spray that hung heavy in the air.

Naruto opened his eyes and watched with slack lips as the blue light began to dance through the mist, whirling and swirling together until, impossibly, a figure appeared in the light.

He was corporeal, but Naruto could _feel_ the power of his presence. This was the kind of man who could walk into a hall filled with Kings and have everyone's attention on him from the moment he stepped foot in the room.

This was the kind of man Naruto wanted to become.

This was, Naruto knew without a doubt, Roronoa Zoro.

The man didn't move, his arms crossed, back straight, and head tilted towards the moon, but Naruto could tell that the man's single eye was trained on him.

And then the man smiled.

In the blink of an eye, the mist and light were gone, as if they were nothing more than an illusion, a trick of the mind. With shaking hands, Naruto realized that where before there had been nothing at the foot of the tomb, there were now five objects.

Naruto approached them with fire in his eyes; A simple scroll, with green caps and a white middle, yet huge, over half of Naruto's height and weighing nearly thirty pounds. A bandana, green as the forest and battle-worn, tied around the scroll's middle to hold it closed. And, Naruto noted with a combination of excitement, confusion, and trepidation; three swords, rather like the katana he had seen some of the village's Shinobi using.

His hands shaking, Naruto clumsily undid the bandana and slipped it into the pocket of his pants.

Unfurling the massive scroll, Naruto came upon something that would forever change his life.

'_Santoryu; the Three Sword Style, by Roronoa Zoro.'_

'_Nami's been pestering me about passing on my teachings to the next generation, yet I find nobody with the determination or the heart to truly learn the art of my blades; only the greed. So, I leave my teachings here, in the hopes that one day there will be someone worthy to carry on the will of my blades._

_To understand the way I fight, you must first understand me. Since childhood, it has been my greatest dream to be recognized as the Greatest Swordsman in the World. This dream began with a girl named Kuina, who promised me (and I her) that someday one of us would be the Greatest Swordsman in the World. Not a day later, Kuina was dead, and I made my duty and dream to fulfill our promise. _

_I have succeeded; my dream is fulfilled. There are none in the world who can claim to challenge me in the art of the blade, and I fear that I will one die without passing on my title._

_Reader, you have come across the Kenjutsu that made me the most feared swordsman who ever lived. Use it wisely and with purpose as I did; to protect my Nakama and their dreams._

_The Santoryu was created by myself when I was still a child, and believed that the more blades I used, the more damage they did. I now know that these were the foolish ideas of a child, but the style has nonetheless led me to my title. _

_Much of the training for the Santoryu employs the strengthening of the neck and jaw muscles, as well as the arms and torso. This is entirely due to the fact that the Santoryu requires the use of one Daito Katana in each hand, and the third to be held in your mouth.'_

It was here that Naruto had to momentarily stop reading, his young mind trying to process the image of the man he'd seen earlier holding a wicked blade in each hand, and a third in between his teeth.

He shuddered. The image was terrifying.

Then… another thought came to Naruto. What if, instead of picturing _Zoro_ with his three blades… what if it was _him_.

Naruto couldn't stop grinning. Nobody would be able stop him from becoming Hokage if he became the Greatest Swordsman in the World.

… but… wouldn't be really un-Hokage-like if he forced himself into the position? The Old Man often told Naruto that he saw everyone in the village as members of his family, and Zoro spoke of using his blades to protect his Nakama, and their dreams…

If Naruto was honest with himself, that… that sounded really cool. It sounded like the kind of thing you'd hear from those action heroes on the radio, something Naruto had wanted to emulate since he was a child.

Even though he didn't have Nakama, he'd just have to make them! He'd have to show people that he was worthy, worthy of being their friend and worthy of learning Zoro's teachings.

He'd show them all!

_One_

_**This is it, the first installment of Santoryu no Naruto. Kind of inspired by Rokushiki no Naruto and another OPxNaruto Xover where Naruto finds the Thousand Sunny and eats the Ope Ope no Mi, but I forgot the Title…**_

_**Anyhow, we're going to have a Zoro-like Naruto, but only slightly. He **_**is**_** still Naruto, no matter how much the stories that he'll read of the Straw Hat Pirates' adventures will change him. **_

_**Alright, King out!**_


	2. Curiosity & Lazy: Two Little Kittens

_**Chapter Two - Curiosity and Lazy: Two Little Kittens**_

_Two_

"Two-hundred seventeen… two-hundred eighteen… two-hundred _nineteen_…" With a gasp and a groan, Naruto toppled forward and collapsed face-first into the grass. Ever since he'd discovered the tomb of Roronoa Zoro, he'd been training to use the Santoryu style non-stop, to the point where he'd even stopped pranking for a while.

The whole village had gone into a panic.

It wasn't easy, and it was kinda difficult to judge his progression because he had nobody to measure himself against, but he thought he was doing well. He'd been following the absolutely insane training regimens the scroll offered and at first it had been _insane!_ Yet, for some reason, Naruto had noticed that the training became easier and easier really quickly, even when he upped the weight and intensity. After a few weeks, he was already scaling the Hokage monument with boulders twice his size strapped to his back.

One time, he'd passed by this scary green monster that was hauling around boulders on its back just like he was. It was yelling something about youth while practically flying up the mountain past him.

After that, he only ever did that kind of training in the later afternoon. The beast only seemed to train early in the mornings.

He'd been noticing the benefits of his training too. He'd become ridiculously strong, to the point where he'd accidentally crushed his ramen bowl once while eating at Ichiraku's. That had been a terrible, dark, horror-filled day.

He'd also been practicing the Katas for the _Ittoryu_ and _Nitoryu_ styles. He would have been practicing the _Santoryu_, but the scroll said he had to be strong enough to be able to slice a large boulder in half with a katana using only his neck before he was ready to start learning _Santoryu_.

And anyway, the _Ittoryu _was the precursor for the _Nitoryu_, and that for the _Santoryu _fighting styles, so he was building up his strength and learning the simpler Katas first.

At least, that's what the scroll said he should do. Naruto _really_ wanted to be able to use the _Santoryu_ style, but the scroll hadn't been wrong so far, so…

Another thing the scroll told him was to eat a _lot_ of meat, something Naruto wasn't too happy about. It cut into his ramen time. He still did it anyway, even when he didn't have enough money to buy meat from the market. He'd just go hunting in Konoha's forests to get some fresh meat, skin it, and cook it over a fire.

One of the only reasons he actually _did_ eat the meat like the scroll told him too was because of the benefits. He'd been growing a _lot_ lately. He wasn't a skinny little brat anymore. His arms and neck had gotten thicker, his chest had bulked up and he was sporting a mean six pack. Not to mention that he'd grown at least four inches in the last four months.

In fact, he'd gotten so big that he had to start wearing his jacket unzipped and his black t-shirts had become rather tight on him. Coupled with the fact that he'd had to tear off the sleeves of his jackets because they kept getting torn up while he was training meant that the girls at the academy were starting to give him _looks_.

Pulling himself from his thoughts, Naruto groaned and pushed himself to his feet. Despite the setting sun in the background, Naruto didn't turn to head to his run-down apartment. No, he picked up his weights, tied them together with a string of bandages, and slung them over a low branch.

It was time to work on his jaw muscles.

_Two - Six Months Later - Two_

Yamanaka Ino was intrigued… and as the gossip queen of Konoha, that meant trouble for _someone_.

Over the past year, Ino had more and more frequently found herself staring at someone other than Uchiha Sasuke… and _drooling_.

Uzumaki Naruto had changed, drastically. The once loud, hyperactive blonde had become… intense was the best word for it. And hunky. _Definitely_ hunky. He'd gotten much bigger, going from the shortest in the class to standing just as tall as Shino and Choji. He'd calmed down a lot from his old pranking self. Most of the time he was sleeping, to the point where some of the students were counting the hours that he and Shikamaru had slept in class to find out which one of them slept more.

When he wasn't sleeping, he was sitting still with his eyes closed and his arms crossed, almost like he was meditating. The only time he ever got loud or expressive was when he argued with Kiba, or with Sasuke.

He'd become a mystery, and mysteries were something that Yamanaka Ino solved. She wanted to know what had made him so intense, and how he'd gotten so _buff_ in such a short amount of time.

So, one day after school, she followed him.

_Two- Naruto's Training Ground, 1 Hour Later - Two_

"Six-hundred sixty six, six-hundred sixty seven, six-hundred sixty eight," Naruto's muffled counting was still enough to reach Ino's ears where she hid behind one of the bushes circling the training grounds.

Her jaw had unhinged itself long ago, and it wasn't coming back up for air anytime soon.

Sweat poured off of him in rivulets, trailing from his well-toned stomach across his chest and over his shoulders to fall in thick drops to the ground below him.

He was hanging upside-down from a tree branch with chakra, using a genin-level chakra control exercise her father had taught her. That wasn't the crazy part. He was doing squats, upside-down. That wasn't the crazy part either. What made it crazy - no, absolutely _insane_ \- was the fact that he had a metal bar clenched between his teeth, with over _eight hundred pounds_ of weight on either end.

And he was doing squats. While hanging upside down. And he'd reached seven-hundred fifty-something.

This was insane!

Less than half an hour later, Naruto was on the ground a little further away standing in front of a boulder. He'd almost left Ino's line of sight, and in an effort to figure out what he was doing, she'd climbed up into the trees to get a better look.

He was standing there in what looked like a Kenjutsu stance, with not one, not two, but _three_ swords in his grasp. One in each hand and one clenched between his teeth.

'_Well, that explains the training he was doing,'_ She thought to herself dryly.

Then he moved.

He lunged forward, his whole body just _exuding_ power as he rocketed past the boulder. He skidded to a stop on the other side and even from where she was sitting, Ino could see the glint in his eye and his grin around the hilt of his sword.

Then the boulder split in three. Ino gasped lightly in shock as the three clean halves thundered against the earth.

She froze. Naruto had vanished.

'_What? Where...'_

The poor girl almost screamed in shock when a hand clamped around her mouth and an arm wrapped around her waist. Her heart was hammering away at her chest and her eyes were wide with fright.

"Find something interesting, Ino?"

His breath tickled the back of her neck and her ear, sending shivers up and down her spine. Why was his voice so husky? And why was it getting _this_ much of a reaction out of her?

Then her mind caught up with her and she wriggled out of his grasp. Subconsciously she noted that the only reason she could wriggle out of his grasp at all was because he'd let her. She whirled to face him.

"What _was_ that! I've never seen anything like it, there's no way the dead last could do something like that!" She blabbed, the adrenaline running through her system causing her quite a bit of embarrassment as she realized just how insulting that sounded. Naruto didn't give her the time to correct herself.

"I haven't been the dead last for a long time, Ino," His expression had grown dark, his eyes shadowed by his bangs.

Ino sighed and shifted her position on the branch she was standing on. She jutted out her hip, placing a hand on it and giving her fellow blond an exasperated look. "If that," She jutted her chin at him, gesturing towards his swords, "is any indication, then no, I guess not."

He looked up at her then, his bright blue eyes startled by her admission. She guessed he hadn't been quite expecting her to admit that she'd been wrong. Still, he looked a little _too_ startled for the situation. Was he really so used to his skills being criticized that when he was complimented, he didn't know how to react…?

That… that was kind of sad, actually.

Ino sighed, giving Naruto a small, wry smile. "Naruto, that was _really_ cool, what you did just there. I didn't even know you could channel your chakra like that to cleanly slice a boulder in three. Heck, I think most Jounin would have trouble with that." And she was being honest. Her father had told her about this one man he'd worked with who could create slicing energy crescents with a sword, but he was the only shinobi she'd ever heard of with the skill to do that. What Naruto had done had to be similar to that, at least.

"Chakra?" He was giving her a weird look. What was he doing, giving her a weird look and just saying 'chakra?' She rolled her eyes at him.

"Yes, chakra. How else could you have sliced a boulder in pieces?" She asked him incredulously. What did he take her for, an idiot?

"Uh.. Ino? You would have noticed if I was channeling chakra…" He shifted back and forth on the branch scratching his shoulder nervously. What was he implying, that he'd done all _that_ with brute strength? There was no way.

"No way. There's _no way_ you did that all with brute strength!" She exclaimed, crossing her arms in challenge.

She should have known Naruto wasn't one to back down.

_Two - Three Weeks Later - Two_

Shikamaru watched from the shadows of the trees surrounding the training ground with a hungry curiosity in his eyes.

Though… most would think it was laziness. Actually, a lot of it was just laziness, heck, his eyes weren't even half open. Alas, he _was_ curious about the current situation, and his curiosity had been troublesome enough to get him off his ass and make him trek all the way over here to figure out what was going on with Naruto and Ino.

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't this.

They were just… lying down. Shikamaru sighed. Sometimes he hated being smart, it was too troublesome.

He shuffled over to where the two of them were sprawled out in the grass and flopped down beside Naruto. His gaze moved to the clouds flitting past high above, but he kept both blonds in his peripherals.

"Hey Shikamaru, what's up?" Naruto's bright blue eyes didn't move from where he was staring up at the sky. However, Ino had propped herself up on her elbows to look over Naruto's chest at her childhood friend.

Shikamaru noticed her heavy breathing and the fact that her forehead glistened with sweat. Had she been… training? He sighed again, his gaze shifting from Ino to the sky above.

"Shouldn't I be asking you the same thing?" He mumbled, lacing his fingers beneath his head and closing his eyes, basking in the heat of the midday sun. Naruto chuckled, copying Shikamaru's movement.

"You've probably already figured it all out, haven't you, Shika?"

Shikamaru smirked a little. He'd underestimated Naruto. Again. "Tch," He scoffed, his smirk widening into a grin, "We need to play Shogi sometime," He spoke to himself absentmindedly, before opening his eyes slightly and shifting his gaze over to the whiskered anomaly beside him. "I get the 'what', but I haven't figured out the 'why' and it's been bugging me."

Ino snickered at him and flopped back down onto her back. Then she groaned in pain and clutched her stomach, and Naruto laughed at her.

"It's a little complicated, but I found a scroll with a long-lost Kenjutsu style. I decided to do my best to learn the style, because I found it at some guy's tomb. Ino saw me training a little while ago, and we struck a deal. She'd help me with my chakra and my studies, and I'd help her get noticed by Sasuke. So I'm training her." This time it was Shikamaru's turn to snicker. Then he paused.

"Some guy's tomb?" His brows furrowed together and he glanced sideways at Naruto. The boy just shrugged. "Yeah," He said, "Some guy named Zoro. It was really weird, I swore I saw what the guy looked like for a second! Kinda like a ghost." Shikamaru didn't miss Naruto's shiver.

"Afraid of ghosts?" He shot half-heartedly, chuckling when Naruto blew him a raspberry, "S'not my fault, ghosts creep me out." The boy mumbled, turning his face away from Shikamaru and puffing up his cheeks in embarrassment.

Ino couldn't help but laugh at his expression.

'_He's cute when he's pouting,'_ The thought felt so natural, so right, that Ino didn't even realize just _exactly_ what she was thinking. Had it been anybody else telling Ino her thoughts of the blond, she would have called them a heathen for thinking anyone but Sasuke was cute.

The trio fell into a comfortable silence for a little, slowly watching the clouds above drift lazily through the sky. Sighing, Shikamaru turned his head slightly to glance at the boy beside him. "Y'know," He began, gaining the blond's attention, "I meant it when I said I'd like to play you in a game of Shogi sometime."

He got up, dusting himself off, swaying slightly above the other two. "If you ever wanna play, come by the Nara compound. Our doors are open." With that said, Shikamaru turned and began the long (and troublesome) trek back home. With a final glance over his shoulder and a lazy wave, he said, "See you around, Naruto, Ino."

Naruto smirked at Shikamaru's retreating form. Just maybe… he might take the boy up on his offer one day…

**AN:** **I know. I have no excuse, other than the fact that you guys are getting this during my exam period, but I'd rather get this out than wait another month and forget about it. Beside that, the response has been overwhelming! You people are freaking amazing! I almost don't know what to do with myself, I have so many follows and favourites! And the REVIEWS! Ah, life is good…**

**I just keep picturing Sheogorath yelling 'And the CHEESE… to die for.'**

**My oddities aside, I'd like to thank Andreasdk1 for being the first reviewer to this story. You rock. See you on the flip side, people!**

**The Chthonic Professor **


	3. A Game of Shogi

**_Chapter Three - A Game of Shogi_**

_Three_

Footsteps echoed off of the thin paper walls as they made their way down a dark hallway.

"Shikamaru."

The footsteps stopped, and a figure cloaked in shadow turned to consider the man standing at the end of the hall behind them.

"Come play a game of Shogi with me." The man spoke, before vanishing around the corner. The figure steeped in shadow sighed.

"Troublesome," Muttered Shikamaru as he meandered after his father's form.

_Three - Three_

The sound of wooden pieces clacking against a board were the only sounds to fill the room. It wasn't until Shikamaru realized that he was only a couple of turns from defeat that his father, Nara Shikaku, finally spoke.

"You've been acting very… oddly, lately, Shikamaru."

_'__Clack.'_

"Mm? What makes you say that?"

_'__Clack.'_

"You've been uncharacteristically driven lately."

_'__Clack.'_

"… I happened to meet someone rather inspiring."

_'__Clack.'_

…

"Tou-san?"

"You're a brilliant boy, Shikamaru. I trust you. Just… be careful. We're Shinobi, remember that. Not everything is always as it seems."

…

_'__Clack.'_

"Oh, and it looks like I win again."

"Dammit."

_Three - One Month Later - Three_

Umino Iruka was many things. A good teacher, a good man, and a decent shinobi were all things he qualified for. Umino Iruka was not ready to bring a bunch of hyperactive pre-teen shinobi wannabes on a field trip for five days. He was not ready at all.

While Iruka was stressing over how he was going to keep all of his little monst- eh… students… in line, our favourite young hero-to-be was dealing with quite the predicament of his own.

"Hey Naruto," Ino waved a greeting at her fellow blond and sat down beside him. When she didn't receive his customary return-greeting, however, she paused. She frowned, crossed her arms and turned to look at him. He had his head down, chin resting on his crossed arms, his eyes cloudy and gazing ahead, unseeing.

_*Tap-tap-tap-*_

Ino's foot started tapping away impatiently as she gazed at the unresponsive boy beside her.

_*Tap-tap-tap-tap-*_

Ino's face starting glowing red, she puffed out her cheeks, and crossed her arms in her impatience.

_*Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap-*_

Sensing his imminent doom, Naruto jolted upright in his seat and whipped his head around in every direction, scanning for the danger that had pulled him so violently from his slump.

All he got for his efforts was Ino sitting beside him, giving him an angelic smile.

"Ah, hey Ino." He settled down slightly, giving her a slight wave with one of his hands.

"Hello Naruto." She replied happily. Naruto was slightly unnerved by the fact that not a single muscle in her face moved while she spoke.

_'__Creepy…'_

The two stared at each other for a solid minute. It didn't take long for Naruto to begin sweating profusely.

"I-don't-know-what-I-did-but-I'm-sorry!" Naruto lifted his hands in surrender.

"Don't ignore me when I'm trying to get your attention, baka!" Ino's response was instant, and she wacked him between the eyes with the flat of her palm.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Naruto flailed, almost falling out of his seat. He may be stronger than her, but Ino's wrath was a terrifying thing.

Ino took a moment to settle down, breathing deeply to calm herself a little. Once she'd collected herself (and Naruto had recovered from his 'battle wounds'), the two of them were finally able to relax.

"So, what was on your mind, anyway?" Ino asked. _'With the way he was acting, I hope it isn't anything too serious.'_

Naruto looked at Ino for no more than a second before he turned away and sighed. "I'm not allowed to go on the field trip."

"What! Why?" Ino reacted instantly, leaning forward in her seat to try and get a look at Naruto's face. Instead of an answer, like she'd been expecting, Naruto didn't move, keeping his eyes locked on the wall away from Ino. "Naruto…" Ino reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, "Naruto, why aren't you allowed to go on the field trip?"

When he turned to look at her, Ino almost wished that he hadn't. His large cerulean eyes were filled with unshed tears, and his expression was pained.

"I don't know! The old man won't tell me why I'm not allowed on the trip! He said I'm not allowed because 'You don't have anyone to sign your permission form, Naruto-kun, so you cannot be allowed participate,' but I know that's just an excuse!"

"Oh, Naruto…" Ino rubbed his arm comfortingly. _'You really want to go on this trip, don't you.'_

"Why don't you just ask one of our fathers to sign the form for you?"

"Eh?"

"Eh?"

The two of them turned around, only to find Shikamaru sitting in the chair on Ino's other side.

"Shikamaru, when'd you get here?" Naruto asked, a puzzled expression on his face.

"Long enough to get the gist of your predicament. Whether or not you think Hokage-sama is using this as an excuse or not, our problems should be solved if you just have one of our parents sign your form." Shikamaru sighed and muttered 'troublesome' under his breath.

The three of them sat in silence for a moment.

"You know," Ino leaned forwards, a smile beginning to adorn her cheeks, "That just might work…"

_Three - Three_

"No."

"Eh!?" All three of them cried out at once. Naruto stepped forwards and slammed his hands on the Hokage's desk. "Why not old man? We got Ino's dad to sign the permission form and everything!"

Sarutobi closed his eyes and sighed as he puffed slowly on his pipe. He massaged his temples, his brow furrowing as he tried to come up with an acceptable reason for disallowing Naruto to participate on the trip that would appease the blond prankster.

"Come now, Hokage-sama. I don't see any harm in sending the brat on a little field trip."

All three shinobi in training spun around in surprise at the intrusion of a sudden newcomer. There was a woman leaning against the doorframe to the Hokage's office with her eyes closed and her arms crossed under her bust. She had a wild mane of hair and two tattoos under her cheeks, marking her as a member of the Inuzuka clan.

"Who're you?" Naruto asked, thoroughly confused by this woman's presence. She seemed familiar, but he couldn't quite pin down why…

"Tsume-san, what brings you here?" The Hokage asked, wondering why the Inuzuka clan head was interfering with matters involving Naruto.

"Nothing really, just heard a couple of brats making some noise and decided to check in." Despite the fact that her nonchalant tone of voice agreed with her noncommittal statement, her wide grin said otherwise.

"Tsume-san, you know very well why I can't allow Naruto to-" Sarutobi began, only to be interrupted by the wildest woman in Konoha.

"Of course you can, Hokage-sama. There's no harm in sending the boy. They'll only be within a couple of kilometers from the gates, anyway. What's the worst that can happen?"

"What's the worst that can happen, indeed." Sarutobi muttered to himself under his breath, once more massaging his temples. He stopped, put his hands down, took a deep breath, and sighed.

"Alright. Naruto, I will allow you to go on this field trip with your friends." Naruto's face lit up like a christmas tree, and the Hokage could see just how excited the boy was by the prospect.

"However!" He cut in before the blond ball of energy could begin celebrating, "I expect you to be on your best behaviour. Do you understand me, Naruto?" Sarutobi pinned his little charge down with a grandfatherly glare, but he could see he'd gotten his message across. Naruto grinned back at Hokage and gave him a thumbs up.

As the trio left - Tsume having already vanished due to a shunshin - Sarutobi couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to go terribly, terribly wrong.

_Three - The Next Morning - Three_

"Alright class, we're going to go over the rules of the trip one last time," Iruka had gathered his class of twenty students just outside the entrance to the Academy, and the air was abuzz with excitement.

"Eheee~" Naruto was practically giddy, and he wouldn't stop shifting from one foot to the next. He just wanted to get going already. _'Why does Iruka-sensei have to take so _**_long,_**_ I just wanna leave already!'_ He thought to himself.

Ino was just as excited about Naruto coming on the trip as Naruto himself was. She kept glancing between Naruto, their sensei, and Konoha's main gates, which could be seen a little ways off in the distance.

Shikamaru was smiling knowingly at the scene before him as he stood at the very back of the class. He'd known Ino for as long as he could remember, and no matter how annoying she got he'd always have her back. His father may have indirectly told him to be cautious around Naruto, but the hyperactive blond had yet to do anything to warrant Shikamaru's suspicion. He trusted his dad, and he knew that anything his father did, was done with a purpose, but that wouldn't stop him form enjoying a little relaxation on a field trip with his friends.

Actually, speaking of friends…

"As you all know, you will be grouped into cells of five students, and your group of five will work together for the duration of our field trip. You will eat together, sleep together, and perform all of your chores together, so I expect all of you to get along. Ah, and the boys and girls will be separated." Iruka swept the class with an eagle's gaze, making sure everyone understood him clearly. His gaze lingered on the rather disappointed looks on Naruto's and Ino's faces, and Shikamaru almost laughed at their identical expressions.

"Now, cell one will be…" Iruka continued to prattle on. "… and cell four will consist of Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Uzumaki Naruto. Understood?" Iruka waited for his students to give him the affirmative (amidst some grumbling from a certain pair of blondes) before he finally set off towards the main gates.

"Hey, Shikamaru!" Chouji waved at him over a sea of heads as he tried to make his way through the sudden moving mass of children.

"Yo," Shikamaru waved back, happy to see his oldest friend in such a happy mood.

"It looks like we'll be in the same cell for the next few days." Shikamaru almost rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, looks like it." Shikamaru shrugged and continued walking, periodically dipping his hand into Chouji's bag of chips. Chouji'd brought his favourite flavour, he couldn't help himself.

Little did Chouji know (let alone Naruto or the other two), but Shikamaru had approached their sensei and asked him to put the five of them on the same team. Lately, Naruto and Sasuke's rivalry had gotten more violent, especially since Naruto had been rapidly improving with the help of that scroll he'd mysteriously found. So, despite how troublesome it may have seemed, Shikamaru had decided to politely ask their sensei to put Naruto in a group with the other three boys to keep Sasuke and Naruto apart.

He'd rather deal with asking his sensei a troublesome question than dealing with the troublesome rivalry between those two for more than a day.

Shikamaru sighed, before shoving another wonderfully tasting chip in his mouth.

Between Naruto and Kiba, it was going to be a long five days either way.

_Three_

**AN: I know this chapter is incredibly short, and seems to cut off abruptly at the end, but I'd rather put this up now than wait any longer. Initially I was going to have this chapter be much longer, but I decided to split it in two, so the next instalment shouldn't be that far away. I know I haven't updated in far too long (especially for the size of this chapter), but summer hit and then I started college, and I know these are just excuses, but… life. Anyway, should be updating more frequently from now on, so keep hanging in there people! You're all absolutely amazing!**

**Peace!**

**The Chthonic Professor**


	4. The Birth of a Crew

_**Chapter Four - The Birth of a Crew**_

_Four - Four_

"Man, am I tired of walking!" Kiba announced unnecessarily as he tossed open the tent's main flap. He sauntered into the large tent like he owned the place, immediately claiming his place on the one sleeping bag in the middle of the tent.

Naruto flew into after Kiba, leaping onto a sleeping bag at the back of the tent. "Ha! This one's mine!" He yelled in triumph, bouncing softly as he sat cross-legged on his pillow.

"Oi, baka, why don't you calm it down a little? We don't need you tearing down the tent so soon after we set it up." Shikamaru meandered in after the two more hyperactive members of their cell, claiming the second sleeping bag at the back, beside Naruto.

Chouji and Shino walked into the tent after Shikamaru, each of them claiming a sleeping bag by the entrance.

Once the five of them had finished putting away their bags and settling their things, the tent fell into a lull of silence. Shikamaru breathed out a sigh of contentment as he lay relaxed atop his sleeping bag. The only thing that would have made this better was if the tent had a skylight, so he could see the stars that were beginning to appear overhead.

"Alright boys and girls, it's dinner time! Everyone meet out here in the common area!" Iruka's voice echoed through the quiet, disturbing Shikamaru's moment of peace.

"Troublesome," He muttered under his breath. When Naruto noticed that Shikamaru had yet to move, he bounded his way over to the lazy boy (though Shikamaru had no idea how Naruto was able to bound in the first place while they were still in a tent) and started dragging him outside.

"Come on, Shikamaru! It's time to eat!" He yelled with a grin.

"Alright, alright, you don't have to drag me. I'm getting up, already." Shikamaru pulled himself to his feet and watched Naruto practically fly through the tent's flap. He couldn't help the small smile that found it's way to his cheeks. Naruto's mood was infectious.

The cell of five boys managed to find themselves seated around a central fire not two minutes later. The four cells each took up a log on one side of the flame, making a rather odd square, with their sensei pacing in circles around the fire.

"Now, as all of you know, the point of this field trip is to have you survive on your own in the wild for five days. This is to train you so that you can survive in the wild while on longer missions." Iruka began, silhouetted rather impressively by the large flame at the centre of their camp. "You will be left alone with your classmates to fend for yourselves for five whole days. To promote a sense of competition between all of you, you're being graded on your performance during those five days, but you're being graded as a cell."

Iruka stopped pacing to look around at all of his students.

"You can drop out of the exercise at any point in time, but by dropping out you affect the grade of your entire cell. You will be competing for the best grade against the other three cells of your classmates, so there will not be a moment of rest for you throughout the next five days!"

Iruka started his pacing again.

"Once more, to simulate the danger of real-life missions, my assistant Mizuki and I will be staging a bandit raid on one of the five days."

Murmuring broke out between the students. A simulated bandit raid? Were they supposed to defend themselves? How could you be raided by only two bandits?

"You shall only have the first day as a grace period," Iruka raised his voice over the murmuring of his students, "This means that you will not be attacked tomorrow, but be prepared. During any of the four days after that, you may be attacked."

The muttering turned into full blown chatter, as the students began to realize just how harsh this field trip might be.

"I wish all of you good luck!"

Just like that, Iruka was gone, vanished like a candle in the wind.

Naruto grinned. Things were finally starting to look a little fun.

_Four - Moments Later - Four_

"Alright, we need a game plan." Shikamaru had sat them all down in the centre of their tent, after making sure that the tent flap was securely shut and that nobody was trying to overhear them.

"Game plan?" Kiba questioned, not liking the fact that Shikamaru seemed to be taking charge.

"Yeah. After all, Iruka-sensei said we'd be competing against the other cells. If we want to beat Sasuke's cell, we need to play it smart." Shikamaru mentally grinned to himself. One of the easiest ways to appease Kiba was to dangle an opportunity at defeating Sasuke in front of his nose like a carrot. Or, well, more like a piece of meat in Kiba's case, than a carrot.

"The first order of business: Naruto." Shikamaru looked up from where he'd been staring off into space to gaze directly at Naruto. Said blond sat upright in surprise, not knowing why he'd suddenly been called out by Shikamaru.

"I want you to lay down some traps around our tent."

"Wait… what?" Kiba asked in surprise, looking between the now grinning Shikamaru and the wide-eyed Naruto.

"I want you to rig this thing unlike anything you've ever rigged before. Do you hear me Naruto? I want anyone who steps within ten feet of our tent to remember the day they messed with the prankster king of Konoha."

If Shino, the poor bystander in all of this madness, had to describe the grins of both Shikamaru and Naruto at that very moment with a single word, that word would be, without a doubt: nefarious.

Naruto's evil laughter would give the members of cells one, two and three nightmares for weeks to come.

"Hey, Shikamaru," Chouji suddenly spoke up, wiping the grease from a bag of chips off on his pants, "Why do you want our tent to be trapped so badly?" Shikamaru sat upright, and looked around at the four other members of his cell.

"As troublesome as it is," He began, "This is a competition. For the next five days we're going to be feeding ourselves and defending ourselves from the other three cells. We've got two of the class' best trackers on our team," Kiba grinned and Akamaru yipped from within his jacket, while Shino pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, "and we have the person most knowledgeable about food in our entire graduating year." Chouji gave Shikamaru a thumbs up and a grin.

"Food is going to be the least of our worries, and if anyone else in the class is going to realize that, it's Sasuke. We're not going to let him take our food. The easiest way to do that, is to defend our base of operations." Shikamaru lightly tapped against the wooden beam holding up their tent.

With their plan laid out, the mood in the tent was becoming infectious. Everyone was smiling, from Naruto's ear-to-ear grin to Shino's tiny curling of the lips.

Things were looking really good for cell four.

Too bad, good things always seem to come to an end.

_Four - The Next Morning - Four_

"Shikamaru~" Chouji's voice broke the serene silence of the morning. Shino had already awoken, but was keeping to himself in his little corner of the tent. Kiba jolted awake, upending Akamaru, who'd been sleeping on his chest. "Huh, wha-" Kiba's half-lidded eyes wandered the room, saw no threat, and he immediately went back to sleep.

Shikamaru groaned from his corner of the tent, wriggling on his stomach to try and make himself more comfortable. "What is it, Chouji?" He mumbled tiredly from where his face was buried in his pillow.

"I'm hungry, I want food~" Chouji whined, rubbing his empty stomach.

The tent fell silent for a moment as Shikamaru mentally tried to process the ramifications of Chouji's hunger so early in the morning, before his brain had fully started functioning.

Out of the blue, there was a sudden intense growling from the back of the tent.

Chouji jumped, Shino's gaze lurched to the back of the tent, Kiba once more violently jolted himself into wakefulness, haphazardly tossing himself out of his sleeping bag, and Shikamaru stiffened, as he was the one closest to the source of the noise, and the likeliest target if the growling was coming from a hungry creature.

"Was… that a bear?" Chouji whispered fearfully, slowly retreating towards the tent's entrance flap.

The creature, whatever it was, growled again, this time even louder and more bloodthirsty than before. Chouji shuddered and Kiba froze at the sudden thick intensity filling the tent.

Both Kiba and Chouji broke at the same time. The two of them screamed and bolted for the tent's entrance.

Shikamaru's eyes widened as he lifted himself up from his sleeping bag. "No, wait!" He tried to call out to the two fleeing boys, reaching an arm out towards them in futility.

It all happened in an instant. Dressed in a pair of orange boxers and a ridiculous night cap, Naruto blurred out of his sleeping bag and across the tent in the blink of an eye. He tripped Kiba, wrapped his arms around Chouji's neck and spun around, planted his feet, and dropped Chouji to the ground on top of Kiba in a perfectly executed grappling maneuver.

The tent went silent for a moment as Shikamaru and Shino tried to understand what had just happened. Naruto sat up, rubbed his eyes, and yawned.

"Man, am I hungry!" He exclaimed, raising his arms up high as he stretched.

Then his stomach growled. Loudly. Like the snarling of a hungry bear.

Shikamaru sighed, put his head in his hands, and muttered 'troublesome.' It was way too early to be dealing with Naruto's antics, no matter how unintentional they were.

"Oi, get off of me!" Kiba's cry for help spurred everyone into action. Naruto and Chouji rolled off of the squished boy and helped him to his feet. Wiping the blood from his nose, Kiba glared at the blond monster who'd taken him by surprise.

"What the heck was that for! I thought your stomach was a bear!" Kiba flailed, upset that he'd been taken down so easily.

"Eh?" Naruto's confusion was apparent, and it was also apparently annoying Kiba.

"The entrance!" He flapped his arms wildly at the tent flap, "I was trying to escape, what's the big idea!"

"… oh!" Naruto suddenly seemed to comprehend the situation. "You were going to walk into one of my traps."

"What?" Kiba asked. "Your traps?"

"Yeah, my traps." Naruto nodded sagely, "The ones Shikamaru asked me to put up last night."

"What about them?"

"What do you mean, what about them?" Naruto looked at Kiba like he was an idiot, "I put them up already. You could've been hurt and really embarrassed if you'd left the tent without me knowing about it."

"Embarrassed?" Kiba seemed a little incredulous.

"Yeah, embarrassed. I'm not trying to kill our classmates, after all. I just want them to stay as far away from the tent as possible." Naruto's nefarious grin was back, and it sent shivers up Kiba's, Chouji's and Shino's spines.

"Alrighty then, I guess nobody's leaving the tent without you disabling the traps first." Kiba laughed nervously.

"Yep!" Naruto's grin hadn't faded.

Shikamaru shuddered. He had a feeling he wouldn't be getting very much sleep for the next couple of days.

_Four - Later That Day - Four_

After the rather… eventful… morning, cell four headed out into the wilds to begin the first stage of Shikamaru's plan.

He'd pressed upon the importance that they only had a single day of relaxation before they'd become targets for their sensei's faux bandit attack. Shikamaru's plan was to take advantage of their first day by gathering as much food as possible and preserving it in their tent for the four following days.

For the rest of the - admittedly odd - field trip, Shikamaru wanted cell four to set an ambush for the impromptu bandit attack. It was crazy, almost unheard of for students to attempt to successfully ambush two Chunin level shinobi, but Shikamaru believed they could pull it off with the five people they had in their cell.

It helped that he had Naruto as quite the unsuspecting ace-in-the-hole to help them overcome two much higher-level ninja.

As it was, the five boys were out in the forests of Hi no Kuni searching for both food and a good spot to orchestrate their ambush against their teacher. They'd split up into two different groups to fulfill their two different tasks; Naruto, Kiba and Chouji were searching for their food, as Kiba could track it, Naruto could kill it, and Chouji could prepare it. Shikamaru and Shino were off somewhere else scoping out their future ambush area.

Not long ago Chouji had noticed that the sun was beginning to set, and so the three boys decided to gather the fruits of their labour and begin making their way back to camp. Naruto, claiming he knew the way back to their tent, lead the way with a grumbling Kiba and a hungry Chouji not far behind.

The trek wasn't far…. but they walked, and walked, and walked, and then they walked some more. Night had fallen, and still the boys trekked on in silence.

"Hey… Naruto, Kiba?" Chouji finally piped up, glancing at their surroundings nervously. "I'm pretty sure we've passed by this tree before…"

All three of the boys stopped to stare at said tree.

"Yup." Kiba agreed, nodding his head, "We've definitely passed this tree before." He paused. Thought over what he'd just said. Nodded his again, and spoke, "We're lost." He claimed with sure finality.

Both boys turned to look at Naruto, who's eyebrow began to twitch in annoyance.

"We're not lost. I told you, I know the way back." He crossed his arms, huffed, and looked away.

"We're lost! We're very, very lost!" Kiba suddenly shouted, stepping up to Naruto and looking him in the eye.

"We're not lost." Naruto held firm, planting his feet and leaning forwards slightly in an attempt to loom over the slightly shorter Kiba.

"WE. ARE. LOST! And It's entirely _your_ fault!" Kiba jabbed his finger into Naruto's chest for emphasis.

"_My_ fault?" Naruto sounded incredulous, "I thought _you_ were supposed to be the tracker!" He accused, narrowing his eyes at the canine-like boy in front of him.

"Hey, tracking has nothing to do with finding our way back to camp, you got that blondie!" Kiba shouted.

"Leave my hair out of this!" Naruto shouted right back.

"Guys…" Chouji fidgeted, clutching nervously to the sack containing all of the food they'd gathered and prepared so far.

"I'll drag your hair _and_ your bitch-mother into this, Mr. 'I have no sense of direction!'" Kiba smirked.

"You take that back!" Naruto fisted his hands into Kiba's fur-lined hoodie, lifting him enough that his heels were no longer touching the ground.

"Uh… guys?"

"Yeah, and what're you gonna do if I don't, huh?" Kiba flashed his canines, and his zipper undid a little to reveal Akamaru's growling head.

"You wanna find out, puppy-boy?" Naruto was enraged, the insult about his mother hitting home.

"HEY!" Chouji's yell finally got the attention of the other two. "I thought I heard something coming from over in that direction…" He pointed off towards another area of the forest.

"You heard something?" Asked Kiba, slightly doubtful that Chouji would hear something that he hadn't. Then again, with the way he and Naruto had been screaming at each other…

"Yeah. It… it sounded a little like…" Chouji hesitated, and looked down.

"Like what, Chouji?" Naruto had calmed down a little and he'd let go of Kiba's hoodie, but that didn't mean he'd forgiven Kiba for his comment.

"Well… it sounded like a… scream." He finished, seemingly unsure of his own words.

"A scream?" Naruto seemed a little taken aback. His eyes widened, "The others might be in trouble!"

"You think so?" Questioned Kiba.

"Well, there's only one way to find out, isn't there?" Naruto's face had turned serious. He turned towards the direction Chouji'd been pointing and instantly took off into the forest.

"Naruto, wait up! Slow down!" Chouji took off after him.

"'The others' might be in trouble, huh?" Kiba muttered under his breath, taking off after the other two. "More like 'Ino' might be in trouble."

_Four - Four_

It wasn't long before Naruto and Kiba picked up the rather disconcerting sounds coming from their camp. The trio had been heading through the forest for no more than five minutes when they caught sight of the light from the campfire illuminating the dark forest. Naruto, who'd been in the lead up until that point, slowed down, the other two quickly following suit, until they were approaching the camp at a cautious, silent pace.

"Naruto?" Chouji whispered questioningly. Naruto shushed him by placing a finger to his lips. Then he turned, and motioned Kiba forwards.

"Hey," He whispered lowly, "Do you hear that?"

The three boys stilled, and Kiba's ears started twitching lightly as he listened.

"It sounds like… men?" Kiba whispered, confused.

"Yeah. Men. As in multiple men. In our camp."

The three of them shared glances.

"What do you think-" Chouji began, shaking in fear.

"Bandits." Naruto and Kiba responded at the same time.

"Bandits!" Chouji gasped.

"Yeah." Naruto nodded solemnly. His eyes were hard as he glared at the ground, his fists clenching and unclenching in anger.

"Then… what do we do?"

Naruto looked up then, alternately looking Chouji and Kiba in the eye. Chouji's back straightened, and he let out a calming breath. Kiba grinned widely, an exhilarating feeling coursing through his body. Whatever it was they saw in Naruto's eyes had lit a fire in their hearts.

"I have a plan… but I'm going to need a distraction." Naruto's gaze shifted over to gaze in the general direction of their tent. "I don't want you guys to get hurt, but if one of you could lead as many of the bandits as you can towards our tent, then I'll be able to set my plan in motion. I need you guys to trust me."

Kiba looked Naruto in the eye, and whatever argument they'd been having was put aside for the moment. Now wasn't the time to be childish.

"I'll do that," Kiba offered, "I'm faster than Chouji, so they won't be able to catch me."

"Alright," Naruto nodded, "Then while Kiba does that, Chouji, I'm going to ask you to scout out the area, and find out what they've done with our classmates. You'll wait for the signal and then free them if it's possible."

"What's the signal?" Chouji asked.

"You'll know it when you see it."

Naruto's nefarious grin was back.

_Four - Four_

Kiba leaped from the cover of the trees and right into the centre of their camp.

"Hey assholes!" He called out, gaining the attention of everyone in the vicinity, "Unhand my classmates, right now!" He yelled dramatically. _'Heh,'_ He thought to himself, _'These guys are amateurs. They left everyone tied up at the edge of the camp!'_

"Get him!" One of the large, unnecessarily burly men called out, pointing at the feral child who'd tried to interfere with their operation.

"Uh oh!" Kiba yelped, playing up his role as the distraction. He pretended to trip as he turned around, scrambling forwards along the dirt towards his tent, allowing at least four of the bandits to catch up to him. With the unsuspecting men hot on his heels, Kiba veered to the right at the very last second, and the first three men barrelled past him. The last man was able to put on the brakes just in the knick of time.

Too bad for him, he hadn't noticed the little white blur trailing behind them.

"Go Akamaru!" Kiba crowed, as his little companion launched himself into the air and headfirst into the fourth bandit's back. The force of the blow was just enough to send the man toppling into his three companions… right into the minefield of Naruto's traps surrounding their tent.

"Grryaaagh!" The men yelled as they were assaulted by the work of the greatest prankster in the Hidden Leaf.

However, it wasn't over yet.

The bandits who'd stayed behind had witnessed the damage caused by Kiba's little trick. With roars of fury, they left their posts guarding the shinobi students to charge headlong at the wild boy who was messing with their plans.

While that left the students open to be saved by Chouji, it also meant that Kiba was now facing around ten, huge, burly men with an assortment of blunt and bladed weapons, alone. He gritted his teeth and dug his feet into the earth as Akamaru slid across the dirt to stand beside him.

Kiba's nails hardened and lengthened, his fangs grew sharper, and his hair stood on end as he flooded his body with chakra. He crouched in anticipation, Akamaru growling beside him, and prepared to launch himself at the nearest bandit.

Then it happened.

Kiba sensed a shift in the air, and for just a moment glanced beyond the mess of bandits who'd been caught in Naruto's traps to stare at their tent.

Then the tent exploded.

A veritable plume of navy blue chakra erupted through the roof of the tent, tearing the piece of fabric into little bits of confetti. As if in slow motion, Naruto leapt through the wreckage, his eyes ablaze with anger. His orange jacket was gone, leaving only a black muscle shirt atop his regular baggy orange pants, but that wasn't what caught everyone's eye.

No, it was the three powerfully unique swords he was bearing proudly to the world that had everyone's attention.

Like a tornado of death, Naruto tore across the camp towards the remaining group of bandits. His blades, one in each hand and the other clenched between his teeth, were all held parallel with each other, creating a cyclone around the whirling blond.

He tore through the group of bandits like a hot knife through butter, felling three of them before anyone could blink. He skidded to a stop beside Kiba, his teeth bared around the hilt of an elegant white blade in a grimace of fury. Chakra was flowing off of him in waves so intense that Kiba was nearly losing his footing.

"Oi, bastards," Naruto grunted around the handle of his sword, "You really _pissed me off!_"

Naruto's stance lowered slightly, and his blades shifted.

"_**Santoryu…**__" _

The bandits were still charging and yelling their heads off, but still the forest around them seemed to go quiet. Everyone's eyes were on Naruto. Disbelief, awe, hope, fear, all could be seen in the eyes of his classmates as they watched the boy who was once the dead last of their class face off against a group of men nearly twice his size.

They watched as Naruto's chakra whirled around him, higher and higher, until it suddenly took the shape of a massive dragon looming over him intimidatingly.

"… _**Tatsu Maki!**_"

Naruto's blades blurred forwards, unleashing a twister of gale-force winds. All of the charging bandits were lifted from their feet and tossed about the clearing like rag screams of pain echoed through the forest as cuts and gashes opened up all over their bodies, before they were dumped mercilessly on the ground.

Total silence descended upon the forest. Not a soul moved or breathed as the bandits lay broken and defeated at Naruto's feet.

They were victorious.

Naruto's plan worked.

They'd saved their classmates.

_Four - Four_

_**AN:**__ So, what did you guys (and ladies) think of the fourth instalment of SNN? Give me your feedback; did you like the fight scene, was it intense enough, should it have been longer? Tell me your thoughts!_

_Besides for that, I'd like to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving! What are you reading this story for, you should be out there stuffing yourselves with turkey!_

_Peace out, people!_

_The Chthonic Professor_


	5. The Crew Assembles

**_Chapter Five - The Crew Assembles_**

**_Disclaimer:_**_ I don't own Naruto. I don't own One Piece._

**AN:** WE REACHED 100 REVIEWS! WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING RIGHT NOW? I'd like to congratulate my 100th reviewer… except they were a guest, so I'll have to congratulate kight117 instead, as the 98th reviewer to Santoryu no Naruto! Thank you so much, everyone, your support is incredible!

That aside, this will be the first chapter where Naruto will begin reading the adventures of Luffy, Zoro and the rest of the Straw Hat Pirates.

_Five - Five_

After the entire debacle with the bandits, the field trip was cut short and Iruka rushed all of the students back to the village. During that time, nobody really knew what to say, unable to believe everything they'd witnessed and gone through that night. On top of that, Naruto had kept to himself and hadn't spoken to anyone, not even Ino or Shikamaru, in that time.

As it was, Naruto was very grateful to his friends, especially to Kiba, Shino and Chouji, who would turn away anyone who tried to question him throughout the duration of their return home.

For the last three days he'd kept to himself, training on his own and refusing to see anyone when he was home, as they had the last three days off due to the field trip being cancelled. Throughout his minor period of self-isolation, Naruto had been thinking and debating with himself on his next course of action.

He was afraid of facing Kiba, Shino and Chouji, fearing they wouldn't accept him and his sword style.

He was afraid of facing Ino and Shikamaru for different reasons entirely. They had already accepted him, they already knew what to expect from him… but he'd killed a man in his anger, and he didn't think he could look them in the eye anymore after that.

He sighed. He'd have to settle this situation soon.

_Bang! Bang! Bang!_

Naruto almost jumped a foot in the air at the loud knocking on his front door.

"Naruto!" That was unmistakably Ino's voice drifting through his door, "Naruto, come out! I- We're worried about you!" Ino kept knocking on the door incessantly.

Naruto's cerulean eyes drifted from his front door to Zoro's scroll, resting oh-so-innocently at the foot of his bed, and made a decision.

"Ino." His voice was firm and loud, but not shouting. By the simple fact that the banging on his front door had stopped, Naruto knew that Ino hadn't been expecting him to respond at all. He shook his head at himself in disgust. Here he was moping like an idiot and his friends had been worrying about him.

He smiled a small, wry smile, but it was a smile nonetheless.

"Meet me at our usual training grounds. I'll be there in a couple of minutes."

With that, Naruto set about his small apartment like a whirlwind. He hadn't showered in three days, and _boy_ did he stink!

_Five - Five_

Barely twenty minutes later, Naruto found himself hiding amongst the trees staring into a clearing filled with some of the most influential children in the entire village.

There were a total of eight children in the clearing. In the centre of the clearing was Ino, who seemed to be in the process of placating Sakura about something. Sasuke was sitting off to the side next to a girl with short, deep blue hair. Neither of them were speaking.

Then there was Shikamaru, laying down and gazing up at the clouds at the edge of the clearing. He was surrounded by Chouji, Kiba and Shino, all three of the boys questioning him about Naruto. He was resolutely ignoring them, and Naruto thought he could hear the odd 'troublesome' muttered by Shikamaru every once in a while.

Just when it seemed like Sakura would blow a gasket and storm off in a huff, and the look in Sasuke's eyes told Naruto that the broody Uchiha would be inclined to follow, Naruto stepped from the shadows of the trees and out into the open air of the clearing.

Instantly, eight pairs of eyes locked onto him.

He stopped only a couple of feet from the tree-line, unhooked his scroll from his back, and planted one end against the ground, leaning against it. Ino was immediately by his side gazing imploringly into his eyes. He gave her a small smile of reassurance, and she plopped down on the grass to his left sitting with her legs crossed.

Not far behind her was Shikamaru, an uncharacteristic smile on his face. He didn't even spare Naruto a look, just came to stand by his right side, staring everyone else in the clearing in the eyes, and then following Ino's example he sat down with his legs crossed.

The message he'd just sent to the rest of the children in the clearing was more than clear. Shikamaru had just publicly established himself as Naruto's right-hand man, and anyone who wanted to mess with Naruto had to go through him first.

The simple fact that such a message had just come from _Shikamaru_, of all people, only compounded the gravity of the message to the rest of the children in the clearing. The mood had suddenly become far more serious than before.

Tentatively, the six other children came to sit around Naruto in a loose semi-circle, and it was only once everyone else had seated that Naruto sat down as well.

This stipulation of his, of course, led to a staring match between him and Uchiha Sasuke. For someone reason, Naruto as making some form of political power-play when it came to their class' social structure, and it was only his curiosity as to _why_ that the Uchiha acquiesced to Naruto's unspoken wish.

"So," Naruto finally spoke, his massive scroll laying perpendicular across his lap, "You are all gathered here today to find out why the dead-last Uzumaki Naruto suddenly became powerful enough to take down a group of bandits strong enough to capture and tie up the lot of you." Naruto's tone was so dry he would have made a Suna shinobi proud.

Most of his classmates had the decency to look ashamed as they nodded. Sasuke had no such reservations.

"Sure, I'll tell you all." Naruto smiled coyly at the six shinobi-in-training gathered before him.

…

"Wait, what?" Kiba exclaimed, sitting back on his haunches in surprise, "You'll tell us. Just like that?"

"Yeah, I don't see why not," Naruto shrugged, "It's not like it's some crazy S-ranked secret, or something like that."

And so, Naruto began his tale; about how he'd accidentally found the tomb of a man named Roronoa Zoro and was gifted with both his blades and a scroll detailing his fighting style. He told them about his training regimen, about how Ino had discovered him, and how Shikamaru's curiosity had led him to joining their little sessions.

"Now," Naruto continued, before anyone could start asking questions, "The other day, after returning from our field trip, I went deeper into the scroll, past the training regimens and Zoro's notes on the style… and found a story. A story I'd like share with all of you."

With a flourish, Naruto unravelled the scroll until he reached the area he'd been looking for. And so began the re-telling of the story of Roronoa Zoro, Monkey D. Luffy, and the Straw-hat Pirates.

-.-

_The first time I met him, I was nineteen years old. I'd been captured by the marines somewhere out in East Blue. They took my swords and tied me up to a wooden cross out in the courtyard of their base. At the time, I'd gained a reputation as 'Pirate Hunter Zoro'. I was a bounty hunter, and I hated Pirates._

_That didn't matter to him. _

_He was younger than me, seventeen, and looked far too skinny to be a fighter. Medium length black hair, beady black eyes, a scar under his right eye and a ridiculous smile. He was a complete and total idiot. That was my first impression. _

_He was always an idiot, aways rushing into things head-first, ether not thinking or not caring about the consequences. Yet, there was something about him that drew me to him. To this day, I still don't know what it was._

_Either way, for better or for worse, he broke into the marine base and brought me my swords, claiming that because he'd done so, that I now had to join his pirate crew. I still remember thinking he was the greatest fool I'd ever met in my life. _

_Before he could untie me from my cross, the marines showed up, planning to execute me on the spot by firing squad. _

_The idiot decides to jump in between myself and the numerous bullets heading my way. I remember wondering what kind of level of idiocy it takes for someone to take a bullet for someone they've only just met._

Here, more than one person gasped, and even Sasuke's jaw dropped a little.

_Apparently, I'd had nothing to worry about. The idiot had eaten a Devil Fruit, I would later learn it was the Gum Gum fruit, turning his entire body to rubber. He was immune to blunt projectiles. The bullets slammed into his chest, stretching his skin all the way through his back, before getting flung back at the marines as if his body was a slingshot. _

More gasps followed that tidbit of information. The same question was running through everyone's minds; what was a devil fruit?

_Then he gave me back my swords, and I turned on him. I needed to know something, something very important, before joining this guy's pirate crew. So, standing there with my back to the marines, my blades drawn on this kid, I asked him a question._

_"__I promised to be a pirate." I told him, "Opposing the marines will make me a wanted man. However, I'll tel you one thing. I will always follow my own ambitions."_

_"__Ambitions?" He questioned. So I told him._

_"__To become the world's greatest swordsman! If you do anything that would cause me to abandon my ambitions… you will end your own life on my sword!"_

_"__The world's greatest swordsman? That's nice! As the Pirate King's comrade, I wouldn't expect any less from you."_

_I couldn't have asked for a better answer._

_That day, I became the first man to join the pirate crew of Monkey D. Luffy, future King of the Pirates._

_The next person we would meet who would join Luffy's crew was a girl named Nami, though she would only be the fourth to do so. We met her on an island under the thumb of Buggy the Clown, one of the strongest pirates in East Blue. _

_After defeating Buggy and his crew, we continued on our journey headed for the Grand Line. On the way there, we docked on a small island and then a restaurant ship where we met Usopp and Sanji respectively. Usopp was a coward who's greatest dream was to become a legendary pirate, and Sanji was a cook. The two would become the second and third people to join _

_Luffy's… no, our crew. _

_While there, we encountered Hawk-Eyes Mihawk, the strongest swordsman in the world. I challenged him to a duel; and lost. For some reason Mihawk kept me alive, and I will always be grateful to him for that. As I lay there on our tiny ship, bleeding profusely from the x shaped wound on my chest, I made Luffy a promise. Raising my blade high into the air, I said;_

_"__Sorry for worrying you. If I don't become the greatest swordsman in the world, you'd be in a dilemma now, right? I will… I will never LOSE AGAIN! Until I defeat him and become the greatest swordsman, I'll never be defeated anymore! Any problems with that, Pirate King!?"_

_Luffy only grinned, laughed, and said "None!"_

_After Sanji joined our crew, we brought to her home island, where we found it was overrun by the Warlord Arlong. He was a Fishman with an evil streak a mile-wide, and Luffy proceeded to beat him into the ground, not only freeing the island, but convincing Nami to join our crew._

_With these five members, the Strawhat Pirates set sail for the Grand Line with a single goal in mind; the One Piece._

-.-

Naruto looked up from the scroll and noticed the sun beginning to set on the horizon. He sighed, rolled up the scroll with another flourish, and said, "I guess this is as good a time as any to stop reading."

Finally focusing his attention on his eight classmates seated around him, Naruto was faced with eight slack-jaws and awed expressions.

Of all people, Sakura was the first one to speak.

"Naruto… do you even know what you're holding there?" The harshly, eyes never leaving the scroll in Naruto's hands. Naruto, being Naruto, answered in typical fashion.

"A scroll?"

"Not just any scroll, you baka! That scroll directly mentions the Pirate King as a primary source of information!" She gushed, her green eyes sparkling in the light of the setting sun.

"Eh?" Confused expressions were the only response to Sakura's gushing. She rolled her eyes at her fellow students. Why did everybody have to be such an idiot?

"It's a legend even older than the legend of the Rikudo Sennin." She told them, her expression perfectly blank.

"_WHAT!_" The reactions were perfect, and Sakura had to fight to keep a smile off her face. Sometimes being the brightest of a generation had its payoffs.

"Everybody knows the legend that the Warring Clans Era began not long after the supposed birth of the Rikudo Sennin. However, that means that the Rikudo Sennin lived in an entirely different Era; a time before chakra. Though it is only speculation, a few of the oldest texts in the elemental nations mention that the Rikudo Sennin may have been born at tail-end of an Era… an Era of Pirates."

Everyone's attention was focused solely on Sakura at this point, waiting to hear what she had to say with bated breath. Sakura had to admit that she rather liked being the centre of attention. Even her precious Sasuke-kun was paying attention to her!

"That scroll you have there," Sakura continued, pointing at Naruto, "Not only casually mentions people joining a pirate crew, as well as a person who hunted pirates for a living, but that there was such a thing as a Pirate King at the time."

Sakura looked Naruto square in the eyes.

"Naruto, you might actually be holding a scroll that's older than the Rikudo Sennin himself."

For a moment, the clearing was absolutely silent. There was no breeze ruffling the leaves of the trees, no birds cawing in the receding light. Nobody even _breathed_.

Then Kiba ruined the moment with a whispered, "No fucking _way_."

Naruto couldn't help himself. He burst out laughing.

His example was instantly followed by Kiba, and in the end even Shino and Shikamaru were chuckling along with him.

Though they didn't know it at the time, this would be the first unofficial meeting of a crew of their own. The world was already beginning to change, with Naruto at its head.

-.-

**_AN:_**_ Hey people! It's been a little while. Why? Because college sucks, that's why. Drop me a review if you feel like it, drop me a review even if you don't. I won't mind XD. Anyway, I know this one is a little shorter than the rest, but I thought this would be a good area to cut it off, and I wanted to finally get another chapter out there._

_Peace out, people!_

_The Chthonic Professor_


	6. Demons and Devils

**_Chapter Six - Demons and Devils_**

-.-

AN: I would like to give a supermassive 'Thank you' to every one of you. As of the moment that I am writing this note, November 27th, 2015, Santoryu no Naruto has officially entered the ranks of the Top 50 Followed One Piece x Naruto Crossovers! As # 48! Which is freaking amazing! I can _not_ stop grinning, people, you all make me so happy. As it is, go ahead and check out some of my other stories, maybe you might find one or two of them that you like?

On another note, I would like to publicly thank **coduss,** who has been a devout follower of many of my stories. Thank you for your silent support :)

Now, let the epic-ness begin!

-.-

Naruto was angry. He was angry with Iruka-sensei, he was angry with the academy system and he was angry with the villagers as a whole. However, he was mostly angry with himself. What kind of idiot gets tricked into stealing the Forbidden Scroll, anyway?

Apparently, him.

After all of his training, all of the effort he put into learning Zoro's Santoryu style, Naruto had neglected a part of his training. When it came down to it, he was still a total slump at the Bunshin technique. One technique. One measly little technique had caused him to fail the graduation exam for the third time in a row.

Then, as he'd been wallowing in self-pity, avoiding the concerned stares of his peers, his comrades, his _friends_, Mizuki-sensei had given him hope. A ray of light in the darkness. So, like the knucklehead that he was, he'd gone ahead and stolen the Forbidden Scroll from right under the Hokage's nose. Then, following Mizuki's instructions, he'd found a secluded clearing outside of the village walls to learn a technique that would allow him to pass this make-up exam.

He'd cracked open the scroll and set about learning the first technique in the scroll; the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Naruto had read over the technique completely, having developed a healthy respect for reading everything presented to him. Nearly cutting yourself to ribbons because you decided to skip a couple of lines in Zoro's scroll _kind of_ did that to you.

So, with glittering eyes and a truly devilish grin, Naruto had set out to learn the Shadow Clone technique. In conjunction with his Santoryu techniques… Naruto was practically drooling. The Hokage might as well give him that hat right now!

Either way, he'd managed to get the technique down-pat only moments before Iruka-sensei had arrived, and hadn't that been a shock. He'd been expecting Mizuki, only for Iruka - the teacher who'd failed him - to show up. It only took a moment in Iruka's presence for the two of them to piece together that Mizuki was a traitor, and that he was after the Forbidden Scroll.

Then the damn bastard had showed up, pinning Iruka-sensei to a tree with kunai and nicking Naruto's cheek with a shuriken.

The scroll lay forgotten beside Naruto's feet, accidentally yanked open in surprise and pooled up in a pile of paper. The very end of the scroll lay facing upwards at the top of the mess, now splattered with a drop or two of Naruto's blood.

When Naruto instantly moved to defend Iruka, Mizuki had decided to change tactics from trying convince the boy to simply hand over the scroll. A devious grin lit up Mizuki's face in a grimace of unholy glee. Like the dropping of a roll of explosive notes, Mizuki revealed to Naruto the secret behind the village's hatred. Mizuki revealed Naruto's status as the Jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no Yoko, the Nine-Tailed Fox.

Seeing that the young blond was distracted, Mizuki deftly flicked open the Fuma shuriken resting on his back and flung it at the unsuspecting blond.

Now, Naruto had been shocked by the revelation, yes. It wasn't every day that one learned they housed a demon in their gut. However, he hadn't been training for all this time for nothing. In the instant it took for Mizuki to unfold the shuriken and throw it, Naruto had drawn two of his three blades. Using a quick-draw technique, he deflected the whirling implement of death up into the foliage overhead.

Mizuki and Iruka both felt their jaws drop at the display of speed and skill coming from the dead-last blond, and Naruto felt his slightly repressed prankster instinct kicking in. If they thought _that_ was shocking, then Mizuki had no idea what was in store for him.

"You're going down, traitor!" He screamed, pulling his third sword into his mouth and tossing the other two into the air. As his two blades were spinning above him, momentarily drawing Mizuki's eye, Naruto crossed his fingers into what had recently become a familiar hand seal. "**Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!**" Naruto yelled. A veritable corona of blue chakra erupted around the boy before the entire clearing was covered in a cloud of white smoke.

With practiced ease, Naruto caught his descending blades and grinned around the handle of his third weapon. Mizuki was now facing down an army of clones, each of them wielding a very, _very_ sharp-looking katana.

The shock of witnessing the dead-last properly wield more than one katana, only to then watch him preform the impossible feat of creating an actual _army_ of Kage Bunshin was too much for the Chunin Mizuki. He stared, shaking, at the sea of blondes in front of him, and he gulped.

Loudly.

In all of the commotion, the only one to notice anything odd was Iruka, who was still pinned to a tree behind Naruto. He hadn't seen the drops of blood from Naruto's cheek hitting the scroll, but he'd definitely seen the slight poof of smoke above the unrolled mass after Naruto had unleashed his massive chakra.

So, while Naruto was delivering the ass-kicking of a lifetime upon a skilled Chunin-level shinobi, Iruka was staring, rather confusedly, at an ancient, beaten-up, wooden treasure chest.

-.-

After Naruto had finished with his beat-down, one which left Mizuki unconscious and close-to-death by blood loss (both internal and external), he found himself and Iruka sitting before the Hokage, the Forbidden Scroll and an ancient wooden chest resting between them. After the situation with the theft of the scroll had finally been cleared up, and Hiruzen had returned it to its rightful place, he turned to address the new situation at hand.

"Now, we have found ourselves with a rather interesting conundrum, have we not?" He mused, staring bemusedly at his most dedicated Chunin academy teacher and his favourite (and only) honorary grandson. "From what I could gather, the seal was only activated because Naruto accidentally spilled some blood on the scroll and then activated it, once more by accident, when he flared his chakra to such a degree."

It was a very odd situation, yes, but Hiruzen couldn't explain just _how_ odd the situation was. Not yet, not when he couldn't fully wrap his head around it himself. The seal that Naruto had opened was one that had been designed by Uzumaki Mito, and was keyed in to the Shodaime's blood. Technically, only a Senju directly descended from Hashirama should have been able to activate the seal.

Then, on top of that, he'd only ever heard of this chest through an old story told by Mito.

Apparently, the Forbidden Scroll had been created for the express purpose of hiding this incredibly dangerous chest. Mito and Hashirama had supposedly found this chest in a ruin in Uzushiogakure - at a point in time when Uzushio had actually still been standing - and had brought it back to Konoha. Six high-level shinobi had lost their lives in an attempt to open the chest, and both Mito and Hashirama had nearly lost their own lives as well. Due to the incredible danger presented by this object, they'd decided to seal it into a scroll where nobody except for Hashirama would be able to access it.

Iruka nodded at the Hokage's words. It made sense that the seal had been activated by Naruto's chakra, to some degree.

"I tried opening the chest, Hokage-sama, but it seems to be shut with some kind of seal." Iruka explained, eyeing the chest with a curious look. Just what could possibly be inside a chest, that was closed with what looked to be a _very_ complex seal, that had been hidden behind a _blood seal_ in the freaking Forbidden Scroll?

Despite Hiruzen's position as Hokage, and Iruka's childhood pranking tendencies that typically tuned him into Naruto's thought patterns, neither one of the two adult shinobi realized the danger until it was too late.

"Huh. Well if my blood opened one seal, I guess it can open another."

Two different shades of brown eyes widened in shock, for two different reasons. One because they probably weren't supposed to know about whatever was in that chest, the other because he actually knew the dangers that the chest presented.

Naruto had split open his thumb on one of his sharp canines and swiped it across the front of the chest.

"Naruto, wait!" The Hokage cried out in alarm, reaching over his desk in a vain attempt to stop Naruto. With a grin, Naruto clasped his hands together and flared his chakra.

With a soft 'pop,' the lid of the chest flipped open, rising up on silent hinges.

The room was frozen for the span of three heartbeats. Hiruzen's expression become one of stone-cold and righteously protective anger, while Iruka's furious snarl was far more apparent and obvious.

"Eh?" Naruto sighed and his shoulders slumped dramatically. "There's just some dumb fruits in here!"

Once more, both Hiruzen and Iruka froze. Three heartbeats of a moment passed. Their curiosity got the better of them.

In a flash, both the Hokage and the academy sensei were looming over Naruto's shoulders, staring down into the ancient wooden treasure chest with almost childlike wonder. True to his word, there was a collection of oddly-coloured fruits sitting innocently in the treasure chest.

"Huh." Iruka let out a surprised grunt as he tried to figure out why someone would store a chest full of fruit in the Forbidden Scroll. So, deciding it was appropriate due to the oddity of the situation, Iruka voiced his thoughts.

"What is a chest filled with fruit doing in the Forbidden Scroll?" He turned his head, regarding his Hokage with a confused look, eyebrows cocked in incredulity. The Hokage, to his credit, seemed entirely unfazed on the surface as he leaned back and scratched at his chin thoughtfully.

"Well, the chest was found in an ancient ruin on the island of Uzu by Hashirama-sama and his wife, Mito, just a couple of years before the founding of Konoha." The two adults could almost _hear_ Naruto get whiplash from how quickly he turned his head.

"Uzu? Before the founding of Konoha? What the heck are you saying, old man?" The boy's blue eyes were narrowed into slits as he stared up at his grandfather figure. Hiruzen ignored Naruto - for the moment - and continued explaining to Iruka.

"After they brought the chest back to the mainland, they attempted to open it, as it had already been sealed even back then." He gestured to the - now faded - seal covering almost the entirety of the chest. "Six high-level shinobi of the Senju clan lost their lives to the seal's defence mechanisms, and both Hashirama-sama and Mito-sama nearly lost their lives to it as well. They were never able to open it, as far as I know."

Iruka paled drastically as he realized just how dangerous his student's actions had been, but Naruto's mind seemed to be elsewhere. Curious as to what had caught Naruto's attention, the two adults tuned into his quiet mumblings.

"Uzu… whirlpool… swirl… _swirl_…" Naruto frowned, his brow furrowing impressively, as he bent down and lifted one of the fruits out of the chest with one hand. He gazed at the object with intense scrutiny, and the two older males watched as his index finger traced a tiny spiral pattern on the fruit.

"… a spiral…" Naruto huffed, closed his eyes… and then he froze. His eyes flew open, staring at the fruit with even more intensity than before.

"A spiral. _A spiral_." Naruto let out a little gasp, and his intense scrutiny suddenly turned into one of awe and recognition. Hiruzen and Iruka nearly balked at the second expression flitting across Naruto's features. How could the boy possibly recognize something that the Hokage, the venerated _Professor_ and _God of Shinobi_, or Iruka, his sensei at the academy, could not recognize?

"… _Akuma no Mi_…" Naruto whispered, a trembling tone in his voice, "… this chest is filled with Devil Fruits."

"Akuma no Mi? Devil Fruits?" The Hokage questioned incredulously. "Naruto, you're not making any sense. You recognize these fruits?" He prodded, and Naruto's gaze suddenly shot to his leader and grandfather figure. His eyes still held that glint of awe.

"Yeah… yeah, Jiji, remember when I told about that scroll I found? The one with the sword techniques?" Naruto asked, and Hiruzen could instantly tell that this scroll had something to do with these fruits solely by the tone of Naruto's voice.

"Yes, Naruto-kun. I remember."

"Well, in the scroll, Zoro mentions that his captain once ate a fruit, one called an Akuma no Mi, that turned his body into rubber." The Hokage and Iruka both tensed up in surprise. A fruit turning a man's body into rubber? It was almost preposterous. "Then it mentions that even though Zoro never ate a fruit himself, that they could be recognized by the fact that they have little spiral patterns all over them."

For a couple of moments, the three of them just stood there, staring at the fruit in Naruto's hand. Then the Sandaime spoke.

"Naruto, I'm assigning you with a very important mission." The Hokage eyed his surrogate grandson with absolute seriousness in his tone. He noted with an amused mental chuckle that both Naruto and Iruka had straightened up slightly, instantly at attention. "As you are currently in the possession of a scroll holding knowledge of what these fruits may be, it will be your job to take these fruits home and study them in an attempt to discover what they are, and how beneficial they may be to the village."

Naruto's jaw had dropped slightly, and Iruka was giving the Hokage an incredulous look. He was trusting Naruto with an _incredibly_ important task, after all.

"This will be a long-term research mission, classified as A-rank, meaning it is on a need-to-know basis only. I will be expecting a detailed bi-weekly report on your findings, Naruto. You'll be paid the full amount for an official long-term A-rank mission as long as you continue to research the subject of the _Akuma no Mi_." Hiruzen paused and gave Naruto a serious look.

"I'm trusting you with this, Uzumaki Naruto. Do not fail me, nor fail the village."

"Hai, Hokage-sama!" Naruto smartly snapped off a salute, a rare serious expression on his face.

Then, as a sly, as well as slightly proud, grin made it's way onto his grandfather's face, Naruto couldn't help but let out a mega-watt smile of his own.

"Oh, and I believe you shall also be paid for the successful completion of an A-rank capture-and-retrieval mission of one Konohagakure Chunin, Mizuki." The Hokage winked in an incredibly obvious manner at the blond. "I'm very proud of you, Naruto. You've done well."

It was almost one in the morning. Naruto had failed to become a Genin for the third time in a row. The secret behind the village's hatred had been revealed to him, and he'd been tricked by the man who revealed that information into stealing one of the village's most sacred scrolls.

Yet, Naruto could count the number of times he'd been this happy on one hand.

-.-

**_AN:_**_ I know it's kinda short, but I needed to split off the chapter at this point. Why? _**_Because you guys get to choose which of the rookie nine get to eat a devil fruit, as well as the devil fruit that they'll be eating._**_ Yeah. I'm leaving the decision up to all of you. To an extent, that is. One of my major rules will be that Naruto doesn't eat the Gomu Gomu no Mi, for example. The rookie nine can also eat Devil Fruits that were Canon devil fruits, or you can make one up and explain it's powers to me. Use your imaginations people! _

_Once again, love you all, and if I don't post again before the holidays, then I wish you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year, and in general a happy everything. _

_Peace!_

_The Chthonic Professor_


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